Cold....."Bitter COLD"........and long term survival???

[NCO]

Moose aside...

How people used to, and partly still do, it here. (long term survival, as in generations long)

First thing is stockpile: During summer people gather resources, food, furs, wool, firewood, etc. Meat and fish was preserved by salting, smoking and drying, root vegetables by digging cellars and rock lined holes and piling them there, berries(cowberry/lingonberry) mushed and preserved in it's own juices. Also a heard of living reindeer can be seen as a stockpile.

Shelter: During the summer you built one. Be that a reindeer skin tent of the Sami-people or sturdy log and/or peat cottage of the Finns. Generally you need a form of warm shelter where you rest. And a tent or a cottage has proven to be the best option for it, depending on if you are living on a stockpile or herding reindeer.

Transportation: Reindeer pulled sled and skis for the Sami. Skis and man pulled sled, a sturdy finnhorse and a horse pulled sled for the Finns. Btw, those horses are the kind that still survive and work with only dried grass and straw, if necessary. They can pull awfully lot for their size and withstand cold very well. They are calm, reliable, loyal and tough, just like the men that work with them.
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Clothing: Wool, wool, wool and furs + furs. Do I need to say more.

[Rick]

That was a very good post, NCO. On the sled you have a felling ax, a two man cross cut saw and what appears to be a draw knife. A very large draw knife. I don't think I've ever seen what quite that large. I've seen many that were 53 cm long but that thing looks like it might be 91 cm or longer. Do you know anything about it?

[NCO]

I'm pretty sure it is for cutting branches from the logs. Pine and spruce branches on the top 3/4th of the tree aren't big enough to justify the use of an axe.

Actually you can see scrape marks on those logs left from the draw knife.

EDIT: Judging by the axe, which looks like almost regular size one, the draw knife isn't much longer than 50-60cm..

[Rick]

That's the problem then. A felling axe here is about 88 cm in length. That's pretty typical anyway. That's a smaller axe which gave the draw knife a larger appearance. Thanks!! Again, good post.

[NCO]

Thank you Rick.

Why that probably isn't a felling axe, but a general purpose axe, is that they have that saw... No point of felling a tree with an axe when you can saw it... The axe is there for larger branches and splitting firewood, and as a hammer...